Mussolini expressing his disgust at the odd late train. (Said with convincing Chico Marx type voice) ” The train she’s a gonna be late again’!
Special Exclusive. Another week of free country trains for Victoria.
Dear train traveller, please accept this correction. Mussolini didn’t make the trains run on time. It’s a Furphy. But he did pave the way in expanding prisons, and making sentencing efficient. So he can’t have been half bad in establishing “ greater efficiencies”.
The Glory Days, and quite economical.
Incidentally if you’re playing with your Hornby HO Scale Flying Scotsman, the next news item may come as a bit of a shock! We suggest you turn off the transformer and make a cup of tea.
ThIngs in Victoria have gone from bad to worse. The government has just sacked the CEO of V-Line. That’s the State Railway. Allegedly the most patronised rail system in Australia. Because the situation is so dire, they’re allowing another whole week of free regional rail travel. This is marvellous news.
Right across this state families are being re-united, and the roads are emptying as tens of thousands of people take advantage of this fare amnesty. From my own personal observation, the railways system, so often characterised as the option of last resort for the poor, the disposessed and recently arrived is literally chocka-block with that unwilling constituency. And though the queue’s are long, and the frustration deep, the general mood is one of jubilation. I heard an older member of the train travelling public remark; “Ooer, its just like during the blitz, aint it, all this queueing, and waiting, but it’ll come good in the end and wont do any of the young-uns any harm to put up with wot we went through to save civlisation from the yoke of totalitarianism, authoritarian power crazed individuals and crazy nation states’. Indeed a spokesman for both the Chinese Government and Rupert Murdoch was on hand but declined to be interviewed, suggesting with a most acute display of projected body language that the most powerful man in the world would rather read the Herald Sun rather than be seen dead on anything remotely associated with public transport.
The nice new ‘Bombadier’ Trains. Perhaps in hindsight an unfortunate namesake.
When will it end? How can it be fixed? No one really knows?, That’s the fun of it. It’s all allegedly because of a faulty signalling system and faulty rail, faulty wheels and faulty whistles, (whoops I made that up). Indeed the only thing not faulty with the train is the familiar ‘clickety clack’ sound they make when they go through points and crossings, cept that some are worried that they’ll make a ‘clickety clickety clack smack BOOM crunch’ sound, as they seem to be sailing though level crossings without the boom gates coming down. For a train, that’s dangerous behaviour!!
But we’re all sure it’ll sort itself out and there’s a lesson in this. If the government had done as every other preceding government had done, NOTHING, the problem wouldn’t exist. But this government has made a real effort to get things right and it’s all falling apart because people are actually using the trains willingly!! Sort of ‘hoist on their own signal box’ as the Fat Controller would say, and as you know dear reader all the skills that made the rail system run efficiently, the empire building stuff that made the Bendigo line the eighth wonder of the world (and envy of all those who would like their bridges and viaducts crafted from REAL stone and WROUGHT Iron) were built by engineers who knew their business. Now it’s bureacrats who build railways, and that’s why they’re broken. We’ve lost the knowledge.
Regional Rail. ‘Back to the Future’!
On my line, they removed the twin gauge put in 1862 for a single track. That’s why the trains stop, because they have to wait till the other passes. This NEVER EVER happened on the old line. Try telling a road user that ‘their freeway will be improved from dual lanes to a single lane as part of an upgrade’. You can only do that with rail because until recently no one gave a ‘Mitchell Pearce” about rail. But then the old line had the older diesels and they weren’t streamlined and gaily painted and pretended to go ‘Whoooosh’….which gets back to the absolute core of the problem. We should’ve stuck with steam. Coal is getting cheaper by the minute, and steam trains are much more attractive. Only one problem though, are there any boiler makers left?.. I’m stumped. I’l go and ask the Fat Controller.